PART TWO The artwork has been uploaded
Narrative Therapy
“What’s your story about? It’s all in the telling. Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice… We tell ourselves stories that save us and stories that are the quicksand in which we thrash and the well in which we drown… Not a few stories are sinking ships, and many of us go down with these ships even when the lifeboats are bobbing all around us… We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or to hate, to see or to be blind. Often, too often, stories straddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning, The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them and then to become the storyteller” Rebecca Solnit
“In the layers and substrata of the past, there are not only personal moments, but also hidden truths. Facing the past takes courage. It is a conversation with yourself, with the environment and the relationships that have formed around you. This ongoing conversation reveals not only your path, but also how you influence and reshape the world around you. The continuous discovery and reconstruction of the past deepens the dialogue with the world and with oneself.” Alexis Stamatis
As I mentioned in the previous post I will be writing about Narrative Therapy in relation to two books, one by Michael White and one by David Denborough. White was the co-founder of narrative therapy and Dulwich Centre. With David Epston he developed narrative therapy, a non-pathologising, respectful, empowering, and collaborative approach to counseling and community work , which recognizes that people do not only have problems, but they also have skills and expertise that can support change in their lives. It centres people as the experts in their own lives and views problems as separate from people, assuming that people have skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that can assist them to reduce the influence of problems in their lives. In today’s piece I will draw on Narrative Therapy Classics, a compilation of papers and interviews through which we become acquainted with Michael White’s work, political analysis and various principles of narrative therapy, as well as, samples of his work with people, and a variety of questions one might use to facilitate the process of change and re-authoring of a person’s story and life.
I have also included three pieces of this more recent series of drawing-collages.
Apart from the themes that I will touch upon today, the book contains a chapter on loss and grief, which presents the incorporation of the lost relationship in the resolution of grief and the process of re-membering. It also includes a discussion about children, trauma and subordinate storyline development, where subordinate storyline development provides an alternative territory of identity for children (and adults) to stand in as they begin to give voice to their experiences of trauma. There is also a paper on the importance of fostering collaboration between parents and children, and also, between child protection services and families. There’s also a very interesting chapter on narrative practices that facilitate the unpacking of identity conclusions. Finally, there’s an interview where White discusses ethics, personal accountability and spiritualities of the surface. He makes references to feminist ethics, bottom-up accountability, and ways of honouring the ‘sacraments of daily existence.’
As the book is so rich in material, I will inevitably refer to a few themes and basic principles in today’s piece. A lot of stories are also included that help us comprehend principles and practices. White writes that the stories [in the book] about therapy portray a number of interventions and practices, which he believes relate to what could be referred to as a deconstructive method. He suggests that “according to his rather loose definition” deconstruction has to do with procedures that “subvert taken-for-granted realities and practices; those so-called “truths” that are split off from the conditions and the context of their production, those disembodied ways of speaking that hide their biases and prejudices, and those familiar practices of self and of relationship that are subjugating of persons’ lives. Many of the methods of deconstruction render strange these familiar and everyday taken-for granted realities and practices by objectifying them.”
It is proposed that our lives are also shaped by the meaning that we ascribe to our experience, by our situation in social structures, and by the language and cultural practices of self and of relationship that these lives are recruited into. White explains that this constitutionalist perspective disagrees with the dominant structuralist perspective that supports that behaviour reflects the structure of the mind and the functionalist perspective that suggests that behaviour serves a purpose.
It is through the narratives / stories that we have about our own lives and the lives of others that we are able to make sense of our experience. White claims that these stories determine both the meaning that persons give to their experience, and which aspects of experience people select out for expression. And to the extent that our actions are prefigured on meaning-making, these stories also determine real effects in terms of the shaping of persons’ lives. This narrative metaphor proposes that “persons live their lives by stories – that these stories are shaping of life, and that they have real, not imagined, effects – and that these stories provide the structure of life.”
He explains that through the objectification of our familiar world, we can become more aware of the extent to which certain “modes of life and thought” shape our existence and we might then be able to choose to live by other “modes of life and thought.” White also considers deconstruction in other senses. For instance, the deconstruction of : practices of self and self-narrative, and relationship that are dominantly cultural; the dominant cultural knowledges that people live by; and the deconstruction of modern practices of power and discourse.
For the deconstruction of the narratives and stories that persons live by, he and Epston have suggested the objectification of the problems for which persons seek help. This objectification engages persons in externalizing conversations in relation to what they find problematic, rather than internalizing conversations. Externalisation is the process of separating people from the problem, allowing them to get some distance from their issue and to see how it might be hindering, helping or protecting them. These externalizing conversations assist persons to unravel, across time, the constitution of their self and of their relationships, and they encourage people to identify the private stories and the cultural knowledges that they live by, that guide their lives and that speak to them of their identity.
Externalizing conversations are initiated by encouraging persons to provide an account of the effects of the problem on their emotional states, familial and peer relationships, social and work spheres, and lives in general, “with a special emphasis on how it has affected their “view” of themselves and of their relationships.” People are then invited to map the influence that these views have on their lives and interactions with others. This is often followed by some investigation of how people have been recruited into these views. White writes and demonstrates in vignettes that as persons become engaged in these externalizing conversations, they experience a separation from these stories, and in the space established by this separation, they are free to explore alternative and preferred knowledges of who they might be and into which they might enter their lives.
He writes: “As persons separate from the dominant or “totalizing” stories that are constitutive of their lives, it becomes more possible for them to orient themselves to aspects of their experience that contradict these knowledges. Such contradictions are ever present, and, as well, they are many and varied……” To facilitate this process which White called “re-authoring”, the therapist can ask a variety of questions, including those that might be referred to as a) landscape of action questions, which encourage persons to situate unique outcomes in sequences of events that unfold across time according to particular plots, and b) landscape of consciousness questions, which encourage persons to reflect on and to determine the meaning of those developments that occur in the landscape of action.
The therapist can also encourage the participation of other people, like members of the community and family members, who have participated historically in the negotiation and distribution of the dominant story of the person’s life, in the generation or resurrection of alternative and preferred stories and landscapes of action.
This work requires some understanding of various forms and instruments of power. In his analysis White refers to Michel Foucault, as well as others. .He writes that a good part of Foucault’s work is devoted to the analysis of the “practices of power” through which the modern “subject” is constituted (Foucault, 1978, 1979). He also points out that Foucault traced the history of the “art of the government of persons” from the seventeenth century, and detailed many of the practices of self and practices of relationship that people are incited to enter their lives into. These practices that persons shape their lives, according to dominant specifications for being, can be considered techniques of social control. This form of constitutive power permeates and fabricates persons’ lives at the deepest levels, “including their gestures, desires, bodies, habits etc. – and he likened these practices to a form of “dressage” (Foucault, 1979).
White refers to the importance of understanding the operations of power at the micro-level and at the periphery of society [e.g. in schools, clinics, prisons, families etc.]. He refers to Foucault, who supported that it was at these local sites that the practices of power were perfected and that the workings of power were most evident. It is because of this that power can have its global effects. Foucault believed that this modern system of power was decentred and “taken up”, rather than centralized and exercised from the top down. Therefore, efforts to change power relations in a society must address these practices of power at the local level, “at the level of the every-day, taken-for-granted social practices.”
The mechanisms and structures of this system of power recruit individuals into collaborating in the subjugation of their own lives and in the objectification of their own bodies. They become “willing” participants in the disciplining or policing of their own lives. This collaboration is often not a conscious phenomenon, since the workings of this power are disguised or masked because it operates in relation to certain norms that are assigned a “truth” status. White writes that this power is exercised in relation to certain knowledges that construct particular truths, “and is designed to bring about particular and “correct” outcomes, like a life considered to be “fulfilled”, “liberated “, “rational”, “differentiated”, “individuated”, “self-possessed”, “self-contained,”,and so on. The descriptions for these “desired” ways of being are in fact illusionary.” He points out that this analysis of power suggests that many of the aspects of our individual modes of behaviour that are assumed to be an expression of free will or are assumed to be transgressive are not what they might at first appear, and thus, many people find it difficult to entertain these ideas.
In therapy, the objectification of these familiar and taken-for-granted practices of power contributes significantly to their deconstruction. As mentioned above, this is achieved by engaging persons in externalizing conversations about these practices, which allows for the unmasking of practices of power and the countering of their influence in their lives and relationships. White writes that in these conversations special emphasis is given to what these practices have dictated to people about theft relationship with their own self and others. Through these externalizing conversations persons are among other things able to acknowledge the extent to which they have been recruited into the policing of their own lives, as well as, the nature of their participation in the policing of the lives of others. He adds that as he has worked with people in the deconstruction of particular modes of life and thought by reviewing with them the effects of the situation of their lives in those fields of power that take the form of social structures, they are able to challenge these effects, as well as those structures that are considered to be inequitable.
What I have discussed and referred to so far can be understood more easily through briefly presenting some of the vignettes in the book. White provides the stories of Amy and Robert to clarify the processes of deconstruction of practices of self and of relationship that are dominantly cultural; of self-narrative and dominant cultural knowledges that people live by; and of modern practices of power.
Amy, for instance, had embraced certain “technologies of the self ” as a form of self-control, and as essential to the transformation of her life into “an acceptable shape – one which spoke to her of fulfillment.” She had construed her activities of the subjugation of her own life as liberating activities. White writes that upon engaging Amy in an externalizing conversation about anorexia nervosa through the exploration of its real effects in her life, she began to see “the various practices of self-government – of the disciplines of the body – and the specifications for self that were embodied in anorexia nervosa. Anorexia was no longer her saviour. The ruse was exposed, and the practices of power were unmasked. Instead of continuing to embrace these practices of the self, Amy experienced alienation in relation to them. Anorexia nervosa no longer spoke to her of her identity.”
As a result she was able to explore alternative and preferred practices of self and of relationship. She was then encouraged to identify people who might provide an appropriate audience to this different version of who she might be, persons who might be willing to participate in the acknowledgement of and the authentication of this version of identity. At this point, I should mention that White also discusses that there might be pushback in one’s environment when they decide to show up differently. For instance, in another sample he writes: “I was quick to share my prediction that it was unlikely that Elizabeth’s efforts to “reclaim her life” would be greeted at first with great enthusiasm by her children.”
Robert, on the other hand, had entered therapy for his abusive behaviour towards his family. The unexamined and unquestioned knowledges, practices or “technologies of power,” structures and conditions that provided the context for his abusive behaviour were all part of a taken-for-granted mode of life and thought that he had considered to be reflective of the natural order of things. We observe in the vignette how through engaging in externalizing conversations about these knowledges, practices, structures and conditions, and through mapping the real effects of these upon his own life and upon the lives of his family, he experienced a separation from this mode of life and thought . White writes: “…this no longer spoke to him of the “nature” of men’s ways of being with women and children. He writes that over time, Robert traded a neglectful and strategic life for one that he, and others, considered to be caring, open and direct.
In brief, White writes that during our early contact, discussion centred on Robert’s responsibility for perpetrating the abuse, the identification of the real short-term and possible long-term traumatic effects of this on the life of his family, and on determining what he might do to take responsibility to mend what might be mended. Following this work, Robert was asked whether he would be prepared to speculate about the conditions and the character of men’s abusive behaviour. They focused on questions like:
If a man desired to dominate or make someone their captive, particularly a woman or a child, what sort of attitudes would be necessary in order to justify this, and what sort of strategies and techniques of power would make this feasible?
During this speculation, particular knowledges about men’s ways of being that are subjugating of others were articulated, techniques and strategies that men might rely upon to institute this subjugation were identified, and various social structures and conditions that support abusive behaviour were discussed. Robert was then asked to consider which of the above were relevant to his life. They then discussed the historical processes through which Robert had been recruited into the life space that was fabricated of these attitudes, techniques and structures and he was invited to take a position on these attitudes, strategies and structures.
White writes: “As our work progressed, the identification of these unique outcomes provided a point of entry for an “archeology” of alternative and preferred knowledges of men’s ways of being, knowledges that Robert began to enter his life into….. Robert recalled an uncle who was quite unlike other men in his family; this was a man who was certainly compassionate and non-abusive.”
I will end this piece by mentioning how the therapeutic practices briefly described above, and which White refers to as “deconstructive” assist in establishing a sense of agency. This sense of agency, he writes, is derived from the experience of escaping “passengerhood” in life, and from the sense of being able to play an active role in the shaping of one’s own life. It is derived through being able to influence developments in one’s life according to one’s purposes. This sense of personal agency is established through the development of some awareness of the degree to which certain modes of life and thought shape our existence, and also, through the experience of some choice in relation to the modes of life and thought that we might live by. He explains that the practices that he refers to as deconstructive “assist persons to separate from those modes of life and thought that they judge to be impoverishing their own lives and of the lives of others. And they provoke in therapists, and in the persons who seek therapy, a curiosity in regard to those alternative versions of who these persons might be. This is not just any curiosity. It is a curiosity about how things might be otherwise, a curiosity about that which falls outside of the totalizing stories that persons have about their lives, and outside of those dominant practices of self and of relationship.”
Finally, I’d like to mention that I will return to the book in the next post because there are some more ideas that I think are of value and interest.